Gaviota Region Interactive Planner

Authors:

Alexandra Martin | Alissa Patterson | Alessandra Puig-Santana | Katherine Rosencrance | Lauren Harris | Pol Carbó Mestre

Description:

The Gaviota Region Interactive Planner is an R Shiny app that allows users to visualize the degree of overlap of natural resources, environmental threats, and DEJ/EJ issues in the Santa Barbara County region. This app is designed to help users make informed decisions regarding land-use planning and natural resource conservation. This is a part of a group project for the Master of Environmental Science and Management program at the Bren School, University of California Santa Barbara. The project is being developed for The Nature Conservancy to aid in their efforts to preserve natural resources in the Gaviota region.

Contents

The application is designed to visualize and analyze spatial environmental data, with a focus on three primary areas: Natural Resources, Environmental Threats, and DEJ/EJ issues. Each axis contains multiple layers of data that define our region, highlighting areas of interest based on various metrics. Users can adjust the weight of each layer and view an aggregated representation of the data. Additionally, the app provides the ability to extract statistics for a specific area of interest selected by the user.

Screenshot 2022-11-28 at 20 13 33

The three axes of the app contain the following data:

  • Natural Resources: water resources, soil, biodiversity, and resilience.
  • Environmental Threats: droughts, flooding, wildfires, and climate exposure.
  • DEJ/EJ issues: pollution, isolation from nature, and demographics.

The natural resources axis has an additional map that allows comparing stakeholder groups’ resource priorities. Users choose two groups, and the map displays the Gaviota Region in relative preference colors.

Screenshot 2022-11-28 at 20 13 33

Data

Environmental data was collected from several open-source databases, including Data Basin and Santa Barbara County Conservation Blueprint Atlas, and were developed by TNC, the Conservation Biology Institute (CBI), the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), California Department of Water Resources (DWR) and the CalEnviroScreen 3.0.

Spatial data was processed using the Environmental Evaluation Modeling System (EEMS) (Sheehan and Gough 2016) allowing us to integrate metrics of different types into single spatial layers.

Roadmap and Contributions

The app’s core components have been completed, but it is currently undergoing review and testing. Additional features, such as a product tour to guide users through the app’s functions and provide more in-depth information about the represented data, are planned. The final version is expected to be released in May.

We welcome contributions to this repository and encourage the public to explore the app and provide feedback for future updates and improvements.

Support

If you have any questions about this Repo, please do not hesitate to send us an email with your inquiries. Additionally, if you come across any bugs or have any recommendations for improvements, please contact us at